Saturday, May 31, 2014

The Poor are Bilked Again and Again

I went to buy my bus pass at the city supermarket that sells
the monthly passes.It’s not the usual glossy
shiny supermarket I shop at but a higher priced less attractive one that offers
this service.As I was waiting on long line
of workers cashing their checks, I saw the list of charges that anyone who
doesn’t have a bank account has to endure.First of all, to cash your paycheck you pay from 1 to 2$.They won’t cash tax refund checks-maybe that
sum they charge doesn’t make it worthwhile.

Next, come the charges for paying bills.Electric, gas, and other services charge
about 2$ or so.Paying your Verizon cell
phone bill costs $3.If you don’t have a
checking account (which if you’re earning minimum wage is too hard to keep up a
balance so you don’t have to pay a monthly fee), you are charged at every turn
for every action.And this isn’t even
the worse- your neighborhood corner store will charge a lot more to cash a
check.

So once again, the working poor are hit the hardest.Meanwhile, we are subsidizing all the
corporate CEO’s who refuse to pay a living wage.Those workers have to be helped with benefits
and food stamps because the CEO’s are earning millions and pay far less a
percentage of taxes than I do.

And to top it off, 2 of my students had their bicycles
stolen at work.For them the bikes are
their means of transport.This loss is
compounded with so many losses beginning with the most serious one- the loss of
a homeland.